Today, I shall take you on a new trip we will go to have a walk-in one of my favorite parks. This park is actually the biggest in Bucharest. It has around 200 ha, and the lake that’s in the park has 13 ha. I like this park as it looks a bit wild and near another favorite place, Bellu cemetery. 

So grab my hand and have let’s have a walk, as we walk I will tell you a bit about the history of this place. We shall start with more, let’s say older times. 

Some time ago, this area used to be a small village, and as in any village, there was a church. All was fine until one night when the earth started to shake, and the church began to go under the ground as the area was already a bit marsh. The legends say that instead of the church, there was a little pound where you could still see the church’s tower. Some say that you could hear voices whispering from the church at night. So if you hear something whispering, you know that maybe the church voices or perhaps some inhabitants from the cemetery that, as I told you, is nearby. We will soon pass by. Even if the fence is big, you can still have a glimpse inside the cemetery…

Now let’s get back to our history walk, so another exciting story is that tunnels go until Ash Crematory under this park. They probably were used by the local rich people long ago when they had problems. Some even say that the Crematory was built to actually hide these tunnels… 

So as you can see this park has some interesting things, not just a beautiful view, even more gorgeous now in autumn.

Do you imagine that this place, which was called Cocioc because of the swamp and the lake, was a garbage hole? It was somewhere around 1930 when this became a local garbage hole how the press was writing. It was full of garbage, but as always, someone else garbage can be the treasure for others. It seems that people that needed money would come and grab some of the many bones that you could find here. Animals were thrown here and made a kind of powder that was used somehow to make the sugar white. I don’t want to imagine that process, or probably I won’t use any more sugar. Even if I guess nobody uses that anymore…). Others came here to pick books thrown here by relatives of people who died of tuberculosis. These people would get books and sell them to antique shops( sometimes I do wonder between how many hands a book got over the time, I guess many books would have exciting stories to tell, not just the ones that are written in them). 

Some people would use the garbage hole to feed their pigs or other animals. Others would pick dead animals and skin them to use the skin…

Well, if you couldn’t imagine this place as a garbage hole, then maybe you can imagine something else. After around 3 years, they cleaned the place and made it a ski resort. They had ski for the beginners, another group was for professionals ski, and another one for the sled. Later was planned to become a park, a green space. 

Things didn’t go that way because of the war. The land was given into concession to a company for 25 years as a garbage hole, so back to that. 

After 25 years, the idea of a green area, park surfaced again, so in 1965 it was decided that this area would become a park. It took several years until the park was all done. It was finished in 1974. The land needed to be also remodeled so the lake could look better. In some parts was to up the land. The difference in altitude was around 16 m. The architect that made the park look good was Valentin Donose.

As you can see, the park looks quite lovely, it also has a beautiful lake where you can see small islands where you can admire the birds that are on the lake, or just lay on an older tree enjoying nature. If you like climbing a bit, we can choose the stairs or on land to go uphill and see all from above. We can also go a bit further, and if you feel a bit like a kid, we can go to the other part of the park called The kid’s town, where you can enjoy all kinds of, let’s say, big toys as in any amusement parks. Or we could just get lost on the wildest part of the park with more green and fewer people if you want more quietness. Or just have a walk on the bridge and look to see if you can spot any fishes, or maybe if we get lucky, we can see a tortoise. If we go on the bridge after we can go near the events house where you can attend music concerts or other events. We can also go climbing and not just on the hills or stairs. There are some climbing things in the park where you can climb, but we have to be careful or fall. 

After I took everywhere or almost everywhere in the park and told you some of the stories from the park I hope you enjoyed them and the walk !